Two Stories of Chester and Baseball - by Peter Zanardi

Chester’s Win over Deep River - June 1921

It was June 10, 1921. The day of the battle for the Bates Cup, symbolic of the league championship.  

Both Chester and Deep River High Schools went into the game undefeated. It was such an important game in the two towns’ 30-year baseball rivalry that they had to come up with $50 apiece to get umpires from the professional Eastern League.  

It took 16-year-old Paul Hopkins one hour and ten minutes to pitch Chester to a 4-1 victory. The Bates Cup was, the Hartford Courant noted, “the first honor in athletics to come to Chester High.”  

The win in Deep River “…was big league ball from the start,” the June 17, 1921 New Era newspaper reported, “and up to the eighth inning when ‘Happy’ Linder, the popular young catcher for the Deep River team, was knocked down on the home bag by a base runner, the game was one of the quickest ever played in this section.”  The unfortunate accident delayed the game for nearly 30 minutes and placed the local boys at a disadvantage.  

“The game up to this time stood 1-0 in favor of the Deep River boys. With Lindner out…with a slight concussion…and removed to his home, Bailey donned the big mit. Chester had a man on third…and second. Timely hits not only brought in two runners but two more came across the plate later.”  

Hopkins, who allowed five hits, struck out eight and hit one, shared the hero role with 14-year-old second baseman Horace Silliman who had three hits.  Part of one of the town’s most storied families, Horace was the son of Louis, a die maker, and Emma Silliman. They lived on Pleasant Street. 

Principal Sigmund Adler was the coach. Adler was “a good principal but he didn’t know his rear end from third base,” Hopkins recalled. “Every time a situation came up, he would ask somebody ‘what do we do now?’”  

The New Era added, “…A noticeable feature about the whole game was the fine loyal spirit in which it was played and the lack of any slurring or insulting remarks thrown at the players or umpire from the sidelines.”  

Hopkins, however, recalled the result “really upset” Deep River coach/principal Pop Tourville, a local legend. He remembered as well a couple of Deep River “ladies” standing on the corner as Chester triumphantly marched by. “They called us names that, well, I seem to recall it was the first time I had ever heard them.”  

Losing to Chester was never easy for Deep River. It was a rivalry that stretched back into the 1880s. George Hopkins, Paul’s dad and a standout for decades, was very much a part of it and, no doubt, celebrated. His mother Josephine was a Leet – the daughter of butcher Joseph and Maria. The Leet family, prominent on several levels in Chester (movie theatre, farm, store), also had a rich baseball legacy. 

George Hopkins, 51, took time off from his three jobs – he was janitor at both the high school and library and sexton at the Congregational Church – to watch his son play.  

The 1921 Chester High School baseball team reflected the strong ethnic ties of Chester at the time. While those of Italian heritage appeared to be the majority of players (Deep Hollow was called ‘Little Italy Road’ in the 1920 census), several countries were represented. 

Shortstop Charlie Perner was the son of Austrian-born Fred and Marie, farmers in the “Cedar Lake District.”  

Catcher Joseph Benedetto was the nephew of Antonio and Lucy Mantia, proprietors of a men’s clothing store in the center of town. They lived on Station Road (now Railroad Avenue).  

First baseman Tony Capellini’s grandparents (Serifino and Christina) and parents (Antonio Sr. and Cristina), farmers on Goose Hill, were foreign-born.  

The same held for the parents of third baseman Frank Monte (Philip, employed at the Piano factory, and Concetta) and outfielder Jerry Scalia (farm worker Frank and wife Rose).  

Outfielder Densmore ‘Denny’ Wright, was the son of Bates employee Luvie and wife Lillian. They lived on Battle Street (Maple Street). Howard Crook’s father Herman, a bit shop employee, and mother Bessie lived on Pleasant St. Arthur DeVoe, Stanbury’s dad, was also employed at the bit shop.  

That month Hopkins joined teammates Benedetto, DeVoe and Perner on the graduation stage at the Chester Meeting House.  Also graduating were Valedictorian Helen E. Goken, salutatorian Roger Gladding, Alice Monte and Clifford Rutty.

Soon after, Hopkins began his baseball journey when he accepted an invite to play for a team in Saranac Lake, NY. He was on a hay wagon on his uncle Henry’s farm when the invite reached him. “…the telegram…asked for a reply but I didn’t bother with that. I jumped off the hay wagon, went home, got some money and took off. When I arrived the guy couldn’t believe it. He was still waiting for the reply,” he recalled years later.

Then it was off to Mt. Hermon Academy in Massachusetts. English and mathematics teacher and Chester native Florine Tucker was a major force in that decision. Tucker, a member of Chester’s first kindergarten class, taught in Chester for 32 years.

“Miss Tucker kept after me and after me to go to Mt. Hermon. She learned about it when she was in college herself,” Hopkins remembered. It was a mistake. Hopkins learned after arriving that Mt. Hermon did not have a baseball team. By the spring of 1922, he was winning baseball games at Dean Academy in Franklin, Massachusetts.

June 2, 1951 - Chester Beats Deep River

The last Deep River-Chester high school baseball game was played in Chester on Ridge Road Field on June 2, 1951.  In what “The New Era” called “the biggest upset of the Shore Line Interscholastic Athletic Conference season,” Chester won 4-2.

Chester, Deep River and Essex were combined into Valley Regional High in the fall that year. Although there were some changes (like ethnic names on the bank board of trustees), Chester, population 1,913 in 1950, was still a factory town.

The star was Harold ‘Mike’ Zanardi, “a shortstop turned pitcher” according to the “Middletown Press.” He allowed just one hit and struck out nine.

Chester scored all its runs in the fourth. Frank Cart scampered all the way to third when the centerfielder misplayed his single. After Fran Malcarne’s RBI single, infield hits by Zanardi and Howie Wetmore loaded the bases. Pete Carini’s squeeze bunt was misplayed and produced two more runs. The rally continued with a long sacrifice fly by Stanley Warner.

Deep River’s only hit was a sixth-inning triple by Eddie Stanton. He scored when Zanardi overthrew first on a comebacker off the bat of losing pitcher Harry Joy. An infield error allowed Joy to score. Also on the field for Chester that day were Joe Bergonzi and Frank Monte.

 Victories over Deep River were still very special.  “The students and townspeople celebrated the occasion by staging an impromptu victory parade…” the “Middletown Press” reported. And it was sweet revenge because earlier that spring, Deep River had celebrated with “an impromptu motorcade paraded [through] the streets…in celebration of the victory over Chester and of the undefeated season,” read the Press report.

Pete Hopkins, Paul’s son, caught for Deep River and years later could “still picture that field. [It] wasn’t much of a field, very short to right, rocky, always dusty...” It had been given to the town in 1920 by H.C. Brooks and W.F. Holden in 1928 and hosted high school and town team games into the 1960s.

 Deep River did win the conference title in 1951, its third in four years. But Chester, which finished at 10-3 under Coach Clem Roy, did claim the last battle in a long war.